The Pierre Naville Center (CPN), founded in 1994 by the sociologist and professor Jean-Pierre Durand, is the reference research center for sociology at the University of Evry-Val d’Essonne-Paris Saclay. It coordinates the research activities of fifteen Faculty Members. Research Unit (EA 2543), the CPN hosts currently 24 PhD students supervised by academic staff (tenure track full and associate professors) in the Department of Sociology. It provides financial support (doctoral contracts, CIFRE, ATER) to PhD students enrolled in the Center’s programs. At the CPN, scholars carry out research mainly in the following areas: work and the relationship between training and employment, urban studies and public policies. Although they focus on a transversal research field: the visual sociology and film studies.

The Pierre Naville Center carries out research projects with several national and European institutions, as well as with companies and trade unions. It maintains privileged relationships with many universities in Europe, North and South America.

The CPN is involved in the CNRS research federation on Work, Employment and Public Policies (TEPP), with the aim of increasing the cooperation between 9 research centers, specialized in Economics and Sociology and Political Sciences. It participates in the DIM GESTES project (Work, Health and Wellbeing) Research Group and it supports actively two peer-reviewed academic journals, Les Mondes du Travail and the La Nouvelle Revue du Travail. The CPN academic staff is board member and coordinator of two research networks of the French Sociological Association (AFS): RT 25 (Work, organization, employment) and RT 47 (Visual Sociology and Film Studies). Although, the CPN members are involved in the following research networks: RT 18 (Labour Relationships), RT 29 (Sciences and technologies in society) and RT 30 (Sociology of Management). The CPN is fully integrated in the MSH Paris-Saclay’s program.